Questions You Should Know about 7 Inch 1000nits Monitor

Once regarded as a luxury reserved for tentpole films, flagship TV shows, and big-budget commercials, dedicated on-camera and on-set monitors have become indispensable for productions of all sizes and creators at every stage of their career. If you’re shopping for a new monitor, you probably already know that it’s not a one-size-fits-all decision. Today’s monitors come in a dizzying variety of shapes, sizes, brightnesses, resolutions, screen types, contrast ratios, and integrated software platforms—a lot of information you need to unpack to make an informed investment.

In this article, we’ll review features and terms you should know, explain how different monitors can enhance workflow for different shooting styles, help you identify the best solution for what you need right now, and look at factors to consider as your career evolves.

Investing in a monitor is a big deal, and you want to be confident in your choice and happy with your decision. We’re going to provide as much detail as possible in the sections below to make sure you have all the information you need to find the monitor that’s right for you. So buckle up—it’s going to be a long, scenic ride!

Let’s start with the basics—the main features to consider when shopping for a new monitor:

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Size and user interface design are probably the most obvious considerations—ones you can see before you even turn on the power. Begin by thinking about how you’ll use your monitor. Will you be shooting on location where portability is key? Will you need additional screen area to pull focus? Will you mount your monitor on the camera? And if so, how big is your camera? Answering these questions will help you identify your personal checklist of must-haves, nice-to-haves, and not-for-me-thanks. 



Here’s a helpful guide to finding your ideal size:

Beyond screen size, the form factor—or external design—of your monitor is also critical if you want the ability to customize your setup with optional accessories like handles, extra power, or additional mounting points. When shooting out in the field, being able to connect accessories directly to your monitor can prove game changing for your workflow. Adding additional power, connecting wireless receivers or lens control hand units that can be powered through your monitor will help to ensure that your setup is as efficient as possible.

These accessories all factor into the overall size, weight, and functionality of your rig, so be sure to consider the durability, construction materials, and functional design of the monitor to make sure it can adapt to your shooting style and production needs.

The camera you use is also a key factor in what kind of monitor best suits your needs. Different cameras offer different connectors—usually High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI), Serial Digital Interface (SDI), or a combination of the two. If your camera’s connectors aren't HDMI or SDI, you’ll likely need adapters to convert to one of these standard signal outputs.

Many monitors offer both HDMI and SDI connectors, but some, especially entry-level monitors, are HDMI-only. The best way to maintain signal integrity is to ensure that your monitor has the same connectors as your camera. This will avoid interrupting your signal path and save you money on adapters. If you’re looking to future-proof your setup, you’ll want a monitor that has both HDMI and SDI connectors. This will ensure that your monitor can handle all your current work while being able to adapt to any shoot you book in the foreseeable future. Aim for versatility—especially when starting out as a freelancer, like most filmmakers do—so that you can connect to any camera and work with both signal types.

While we’re on the topic of signals, you might want to get acquainted with the term "looping,” also referred to as "pass thru." This refers to taking the SDI or HDMI input signal into the monitor and passing/looping the same signal out again. For example, you could use the pass thru/loop thru on your monitor to share the input signal with a Teradek transmitter. One way we use looping in our studio is to connect two 17" monitors via SDI. The video feed goes IN one monitor and that monitor shares the signal by passing it OUT via SDI to the next monitor. The difference between "looping" and "cross-conversion" is that the latter "converts" HDMI to SDI (or vice versa), meaning you could send an HDMI signal to your monitor from an HDMI-only camera and output SDI to your SDI-only downstream device. This knowledge is valuable as you start to connect additional devices to your workflow.

Let’s take a look at the difference in signal outputs between HDMI and SDI:



Your monitor should ideally offer options for both external battery and AC power. Some monitors offer hot-swappable battery plates, allowing you to quickly replace drained batteries so you can get back to shooting. Other monitors can centralize your power supply with pass-through ports that allow your monitor battery to also power your accessories, like the SmallHD Cine 13, which has 2x 2-pin locking power outputs for powering external devices.

Let’s talk about batteries for a second. Typically, large, professional Gold Mount or V-Mount batteries from a leading company like Anton Bauer will have a higher capacity than batteries that come standard on monitors, which is why these industry-standard batteries are better for shooting on location. Portable, lightweight monitors often use either the Canon LP-E6 or Sony L-Series battery. For larger professional production monitors, you'll want either Gold Mount or V-Mount batteries, or even a block battery like Anton Bauer’s VCLX that can run uninterrupted from the first shot to lunch. Gold Mount batteries get their name from the round gold locating pins and V-Mount batteries get their name from the v-shaped locating mechanism. The term “hot-swappable” indicates a dual-battery input that allows you to swap out a dying battery for a fresh one without interrupting the power supply.

HDR is the acronym for “High Dynamic Range.” The dynamic range is defined as the difference in luminosity between the brightest and darkest areas of your image. “High Dynamic Range” enables you to see a larger range of colors on your screen. These colors appear more vivid, the highlights are brighter and clearer, and the shadows have more depth. Some monitors, like our Vision Series, can display True HDR images while others offer excellent HDR Previews, like our OLED 27.

The goal of HDR on set is to match the final image seen by the viewer as closely as possible. Nearly all content today is finished to HDR specifications in post-production, so the closer your on-set monitor renders detail the way you’ll see it in post, the less likely you are to miss crucial details that might require a reshoot. In a world where content is viewed on larger and more capable home televisions, notebook computers, and even HDR-capable mobile displays, HDR monitoring on set helps ensure that no unwelcome surprises are lost in the shadows.

Put simply, Rec. 709 is the color space used for the HDTV transmission standard, and DCI-P3 is the color gamut originally created for use in the theatrical film industry, particularly for digital cinema projectors. The main difference is that DCI-P3 displays deeper green and red tones than Rec. 709, but blue tones appear with the same consistency.

The best way to decide which monitor’s color space best suits your needs is to consider how your audience will watch your content. If you’re shooting web content or for broadcast television, Rec. 709 is usually the way to go. If you’re shooting a movie that will screen digitally in theaters or on HDR televisions, DCI-P3’s larger color palette will be more appropriate. Seeing what the audience sees is a clear advantage when your creative vision depends on nuanced color balance. While post-production includes color grading and VFX, the more closely your on-set monitor reflects the final product, the fewer unexpected surprises you’ll encounter in post.

For HDR finishing, the color space question becomes much more complicated. But if there is a ‘most-common’ finishing standard for HDR, it’s the DCI-P3 color gamut with its D65 white point and PQ curve. That said, HDR transmission is nowhere near standardized, and many studios currently have their own unique finishing specifications for final publishing.

Some monitors leave it to you to figure out your monitor settings and make sure that you’re operating in the right color space for your production. But SmallHD has a unique feature called “Color Pipe” to simplify your color space setup. Just tell Color Pipe what type of signal is coming in each input (usually Log-based), and then set it to display in HDR or SDR for complete control of your monitoring color space and curves.

Video resolution indicates the amount of detail in your video and how realistic and clear it appears. When comparing monitors, resolution is the most obvious visual differentiator along with brightness. In terms of pixels, HD resolution is pixels x pixels; UHD resolution is pixels x pixels; and DCI 4K resolution is x pixels. If your camera outputs a 4K signal, a 4K monitor will give you the most accurate image representation. If your camera outputs 4K and your monitor displays at a lower resolution, depending on your signal workflow, you may need to configure your camera output to downscale to HD.

If you’re not quite ready to pull the trigger on 4K, look for a monitor with at least full HD resolution that has some 4K video input options. Even when purchasing a Full HD monitor, look for 4K-compatible monitors like the Smart 7 Series. While they’re Full HD monitors, they can ingest a UHDp30 signal via HDMI and employ 1:1 Pixel Mapping to let you utilize the full video signal resolution. 1:1 Pixel Mapping displays an input source without scaling it, so each pixel received is mapped to a single native pixel on the monitor. The ability to zoom in 100% allows you to maintain image integrity, ensuring that your image is always crisp and in focus.

As a side note, our Cine 7 is a 7” monitor with Camera Control functionality, allowing you to view and adjust the settings of popular cameras through the monitor’s UI—specifically RED® RCP2 (KOMODO®,V-RAPTOR™), RED RCP (for DSMC2® and most features on DSMC), ARRI (ALEXA MINI, ALEXA MINI LF, AMIRA), and Sony VENICE. To learn more about camera control watch this video.

The brightness of your monitor can make or break your shooting day when you're on location or anywhere with unpredictable lighting. As a rule, high-brightness monitors are ideal for shooting outdoors. The sun is the biggest, best key light on the planet, but it can also be your worst enemy when you’re trying to review your shot.

Monitor brightness is measured in nits. One nit is equal to one candela (one candlepower) per square meter. nits of brightness is considered daylight-viewable, so if you shoot outside a lot, aim for this or higher. If you already have a low-brightness monitor, say around 300nits, you may want to purchase a compatible accessory like a sun hood to help you review shots in brighter environments.

Note of caution: keeping your monitor consistently at the highest brightness will drain your battery’s charge more quickly, so remember to adjust brightness as needed or keep extra batteries nearby. Brightness can also impact image quality and color reproduction, so you’ll want to find quality monitors—like SmallHD—that retain reliable image integrity and color reproduction on their daylight-viewable displays.

You’ll also want to compare contrast ratios when researching new monitors. The contrast ratio is the difference between the brightest white and the darkest black of your image. A contrast ratio of :1 means the brightness of a completely white image is times greater than the brightness of a completely black image. Dynamic contrast ratio is when the blacks and whites are measured at different brightness levels, producing a range of contrast as opposed to a static number defined at a specific brightness level.

Viewing angle is another important consideration (it’s not exactly brightness-related, but we’re going to squeeze it in here anyway). Just imagine a scenario where you can't view your monitor head-on or you’re reviewing a shot with other people and you’re all looking at it from a different angle. Simply put, the larger viewing angle your monitor offers, the easier it will be to see a quality image representation from the side. Ideally, your monitor’s viewing angle should be as close to 180 degrees as possible, but depending on the display technology in the monitor, a perfect viewing angle may not be possible, nor is it always necessary. One more note: Even though a spec sheet may claim a 180-degree viewing angle, it does not mean there is zero color shift when viewing off-axis.

The software tools available on today’s monitors are game-changers. Common tools like focus assist and false color now come included on many entry-level monitors, and it’s impossible to imagine a world without them. But just because a monitor has a tool does not mean that tool is accurate or useful. For example, you might buy a monitor with a waveform tool, but its slow refresh rate renders it practically unusable. It’s important to make sure that whichever monitor you invest in, it includes the tools you need and a user interface that aligns with your workflow and can evolve with your career.

SmallHD prides itself on powerful, accurate software tools and UI/UX integrated into every monitor we manufacture. To learn more about our intuitive toolkit, learn more about the latest PageOS 5.

Here’s a look at the most common monitor tools:

Just as the distinction between stills photographers and filmmakers is getting increasingly blurred, so is the technology and kit. While it used to be that virtually all stills pros were hooked on DSLRs and filmmakers had camcorders, nowadays video-enabled DSLRs and mirrorless hybrids are being used by both camps. And if you provide your clients with stills and video, then it makes sense to use all the latest technology to speed workflow up and improve quality.

One piece of kit that started out aimed almost exclusively at filmmakers, but which now makes loads of sense for hybrid and stills shooters as well, is the external monitor. This helps you nail your focus and exposure, frame your shots to perfection and, in many cases, control your camera for good measure. It beats squinting at a camera’s LCD screen or using a loupe or other Heath Robinson shade to see what you’ve captured.

Even if you’re predominantly a commercial stills shooter, an external monitor can be a useful tool. It delivers the benefits of shooting tethered, for example, offering a far more accurate and bigger view of your images with instant response. So you can really judge the shots you’ve taken, rather than either trusting your camera’s smaller

screen or having the faff of taking a laptop on location.

A field monitor can sit right on top of your camera or be held by your tripod’s accessory arm and it connects via the HDMI socket on your camera with no other software needed. So the images are still stored to your camera’s memory cards with all the redundancy that most twin-slot systems will offer.

Essentially it replicates your camera’s screen and/or viewfinder. But overlaid on that can be more useful tools like waveforms – which are more advanced and easier to understand graphical representations of exposure than a histogram. Once you’ve got used to waveforms, you’ll never want to go back. They also have adjustable zebra settings if that’s your preferred way of checking exposure, plus focus peaking to help you ensure everything is sharp before you trigger the shutter. Once you’ve taken the shot you can review the result on the large screen, zoom in to check it’s perfect and even see the results of pre-loaded styles to see how it would look. This uses the filmmakers’ Look Up Tables (LUTs) but you can create your own Photoshop or Lightroom LUTs with your favourite processing variables to see how the shots would look once ‘processed’.

It’s once you hit the video button that

external monitors really come into their own, as it’s what they were designed for. That’s where the professional filmmaking tools like waveforms, vectorscopes, false colour and audio really comes in.

However, some monitors also offer recording capability as well, so you can record the video signal to the monitor’s memory –either a memory card or SSD – as well as to your camera’s cards for total redundancy.

Some of these monitor/ recorders also offer inputs via SDI leads as well as HDMI, so can be used with professional movie cameras, too. But best of all, in most cases you can actually get higher-quality video out of your camera by recording the signal separately.

On some cameras, you can actually capture Raw video and the monitor/ recorder can either record this as is or cleverly convert it to formats like Apple ProRes RAW or ProRes 442 which is faster to edit. So they can make a big difference to the actual quality of your footage. They can also record separate audio in very high quality, so you won’t need an additional external audio recorder. We’re taking a look here at three of the best-value and best-spec seven-inch monitors to see what they offer and how they perform.

BEING AN all-American company where as we know the sun always shines a lot, the SmallHD team focuses on making monitors that can be used outdoors on even the brightest days. It’s no good having a monitor if you can’t see it. The latest bit of kit is the firm’s new Focus 7 monitor, based on their five-inch unit but even bigger to enable more real estate to be crammed on to it.

Screen brightness is measured in nits, and the Focus 7 packs nits, making it one of the most powerful on the market. This makes it really useful outdoors on the sunniest days, even without using an accessory sunhood. There is a very wide viewing angle too, which is important for real-world use so you don’t have to constantly move your head around to get a good view.

We used it on mirrorless cameras like the Panasonic S1R and Sony A7R III, where it provided a very much needed increase in usability. That’s especially useful as those cameras are very high resolution and full-frame, which makes focusing super-critical. Compounded by the lack of proper tools and small screens, it makes lots of sense to use a larger external monitor on a full-frame mirrorless cameras as well as DSLRs with HDMI output.

At 771g, The Focus 7 is also relatively light, so it doesn’t add loads of bulk to your camera rig. But then you do have to add batteries, of course, some sort of clamping device and an HDMI lead, so the package does increase, as well as the cost and weight.

The Focus 7 is powered by one or two of the readilyavailable and affordable Sony L-series batteries, such as the very common NP-F lithium cells. These are hot £738 Small HD Focus 7 monitor SPECIFICATIONS swappable so when one starts to run down, you can whip it out to charge it and the second cell kicks in seamlessly. You can also use adapters for professional and very big V-lock batteries, if you have them. With such a bright screen, the screen does put a load on batteries, but not as much as monitor/ recorders.

Additional reading:
Top Benefits of Using a 7 Inch Touch Panel PC

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The Focus 7 has four standard-sized threaded sockets around its tough aluminium bezel so will take lots of standard monitor arms or clamps. We used it with SmallHD’s accessory articulating arm which is designed for the monitor and it shows. It’s small, precise and totally worth the £97 asking price as it’s ideal for use on mirrorless cameras.

The connection is via an HDMI. All you have to do is plug it in and it’s instantly working. Everything is simple to use, with the touchscreen an easy way to navigate. And the pinch-to-zoom feature, just like a smartphone, is a great way to zoom in to ensure your shot is sharp.

There’s no learning curve required to use the Focus 7 as a large, bright monitor. Plug it into your camera’s HDMI socket and it just works.

For more advanced stills users and filmmaking it also offers waveforms, false colour warnings, focus tools and support for LUTs, for a truly professional workflow experience. The screen is × resolution and takes video footage up to 4K at 30p.

It’s a shame it can’t handle 4K 60p or p at higher than 60fps. For that, you have to drop to the i format, and then it goes as high as 120fps. With cameras like the Panasonic S1H and GH5S cracking the 180fps barrier in video, it’s a shame even a new monitor like the Focus 7 can’t keep up. But that’s a very specific gripe for a small group of high-speed filmmakers. For the vast majority, it’s all you’ll ever need.

https://www.smallhd.com/

IF THERE’S ONE NAME that’s a giant in the world of monitors, it’s Atomos. The Australian firm is pushing the edge of what’s possible with exclusive links to Apple, which has seen the duo pioneer the new Apple ProRes RAW format. If you want to unlock the maximum video quality from your mirrorless or pro camcorder, Atomos is usually the first port of call and, in many cases, the only option.

The Shogun Inferno is the latest 4K Monitor/Recorder and at £ is the priciest on test by far. But beware, the cost doesn’t stop there. You need to also budget for an SSD to record onto, which can easily cost £200 for a 480GB version that’s fast enough to cope, which fits inside Atomos caddies. Then you’ll need Atomos’ own card reader to read the files. Plus an SDI lead for pro video camera use or, potentially, Atomos’ own HDMI cable if you want to use it for HD recording. And some sort of small ball head to attach it to the camera, plus Sony NP-F-fit batteries and a charger. So that little lot could push the price up to around £ in total.

But you will own the fastest, most capable and pretty much the brightest monitor you can buy. The Focus 7 is very bright at nits, but the Atomos aces it with a staggering nits. The downside is battery power, as it does burn through the juice. For extended shooting, you’ll need some spares for sure. It takes two NP-F cells and, like the Focus 7, these are hotswappable so you don’t need to run out of power.

For stills use as a monitor only this means there is little advantage over the SmallHD monitor apart from the extreme brightness. It’s when you switch to video that the Atomos really shows its true colours, as it’s one of the very few that can not only record your standard camera output in 4K or HD at higher bitrates than it can cope with internally, but can actually record its Raw video signal or convert that Raw from the camera to an editable format like ProRes. Or it can convert it to ProResRAW, which is like a slimmed down Raw format that still has all the Raw options, such as being able to change white balance or recover highlights and shadows.

For stills pros who shoot exclusively in Raw it may come as something of a shock to realise that the vast majority of video cameras – even hugely expensive ones costing tens of thousands of pounds – don’t record Raw video. The Atomos is one of the very few ways of actually managing this feat, and certainly the most affordable and user-friendly.

The buzzword in filmmaking right now is HDR, as many HDR-equipped TV sets are hitting the market. The Atomos helps you monitor and record HDR as you can set it to Atom HDR viewing mode, which has a slider on the touchscreen so you can alter what you’re seeing between a full HDR image right down to the standard Rec.709 version, which has around six stops of dynamic range. So you can set the slider to HDR then, using the waveform, tweak your exposure so you’re not losing any highlight details.

It’s a fully professional tool that’s portable, rugged and delivers what others can’t. But it’s more pricey, power thirsty and significantly more complicated to get to grips with. But for the ultimate result it’s just about the best you can get. 

https://www.atomos.com/

IF YOU WANT the advantages of a monitor/ recorder but don’t want or need the complexities or cost of a unit such as the Atomos, then the Blackmagic Video Assist 4K is an affordable and slick package to consider. It can be used to partner everything from cinema cameras through to mirrorless models and there are twin mini XLR inputs for audio recording, too.

The unit is powered by a pair of Canon LP-E6 lithium batteries which clip onto the back. The media is recorded onto two high-speed SD cards, and these have to be of a certain spec. The Blackmagic website lists several recommended cards but we tried two that were listed, without any luck. Trying

another brand of card that wasn’t officially supported did work though, and this could be formatted directly on the unit itself.

The × screen is very sharp and you can see a full 16:9 image. The biggest issue is the brightness, which is only around 350 nits so it’s significantly less than its rivals. However, in use it’s plenty unless you really are in the direct sun, and then a clip-on sun hood is useful.

The Video Assist 4K records HD and 4K up to 30p in full broadcast quality 10-bit, 4:2:2 ProRes or DNxHD files that works with most software, so you can start editing without having to convert them. And twin recorders means that once one card is full, the signal is automatically recorded to the other card with no gaps. But this facility means you will need some serious memory card space. It eats up a lot of storage, compared to the size of card you might need when recording smaller files internally in your own camera.

The touchscreen display lets you change recording formats or view the current input frame rate, histogram, false colour, audio meters and timecode. There are lots of mounting points, so you can fix the rugged, aluminium unit in lots of places and the screen autorotates if you use it inverted.

Just about the only drawbacks in use are the relatively basic exposure and focus aids on the screen. The histogram is in the bottom corner and is not particularly easy to see, and there are no vectorscope or waveform options. The peaking and zebra assist functions are quite basic, but they do the job. But there are no look-up table options. And while 4K recording and Apple ProRes is impressive, there is no Raw recording and no fast frame rates. HD is limited to 60fps and UHD to 30fps.

The monitor/ recorder does come bundled with the light version of DaVinci Resolve colour grading software, which is a substantial and valuable bonus.

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/

CONCLUSION

These three seven-inch monitors may on the surface look very similar, but they offer very different features that make them suitable for different users. At the top of the pile is the most expensive and complicated, but also the most feature-packed, the Atomos Shogun Inferno. It’s by far the brightest on test and, as a video recording device, it unlocks the true potential of your camera. In many cases, it’s the only way of getting the benefits of Raw video out of your camera so is highly recommended.

At the other end of the scale is the Focus 7 from SmallHD. This is very bright at nits and has all the good tools like focusing and waveforms monitors and support for LUTs. If you just want a seveninch monitor, this is truly a professional version and you’d go a long way to find anything better.

The Blackmagic Video Assist 4K, meanwhile, offers incredible value. It costs virtually the same as the Focus 7 but, like the Atomos, can also record, so it can be used to improve the video footage from your camera. As a budget monitor/ recorder it offers a lot.

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